Islamic practise and behaviour problems

Asslamo Allaikum Wa Rahmatullahi,

This applied to me FIRST except that I don’t even know anything so at least they have a head start on me.

I am very concerned and alarmed at the condition of the Ummah. I am seeing people who seem to know a lot and are satisfied that they are part of a group (e.g. Deobandees and others) and that they are with the Haqq.

These brothers and sisters know their stuff but their life seems to not reflect aspects of Sunnah and they are lax in controlling their Nafs and practising Islam fully.

We have websites, blogs, talks, youtube, facebok, twitter but Taqwa is missing and Taqwa is the one which drives people to follow Islam.

Is anyone else concerned? Are you witnessing similar things with people with a lot of knowledge but empty lives???

In my mind there are techniques of developing Taqwa as follows:

1. Stay with people of Taqwa: This is indirect
2. Read and ponder upon the Qur'aan: This is direct

What are some other ways?

Reading the responses and the thread on SF and trying to make sense of all this...

Taqwa will come from acting on Sunnah and avoidance of Haram VERSUS in our times we think that Taqwa will come from knowledge and information and more Dhik'r and so on.

So we have taken a postive (action) and turned into an Academic exercise and where we do act we try to supplement with Nafil Adkhaar etc when the action is actually avoidance of sins.

Is this a good enough summary?